O Christmas Tree
by RavenclawGrrl
Summary: While Harry and Severus are spending Christmas at Hermione's, Harry recalls a previous Christmas at the Dursleys


Title: O Christmas Tree  
  
Author: RavenclawGrrl  
  
RATING: PG  
  
Pairing: Harry/Snape  
  
Fandom: Harry Potter  
  
Disclaimer. I do not own these characters, JK Rowling does.  
  
Note: Written for the Slash Advent Calendar Challenge situated at: http://www.kardasi.com/Advent Thanks to jl_foxy for beta-ing this for me.  
  
Feedback Email address: padme_patil@yahoo.com (Please, please, please let me know what you think.)  
  
~~~  
  
O Christmas Tree  
  
Harry stood in the doorway to the living room, looking at the Christmas tree with all its twinkling lights. His body was rigid and he was unconsciously flexing the fingers on his left hand and then clenching them into a fist over and over again.  
  
"Harry?" Severus asked in a quiet, puzzled voice from across the room. "Harry, are you coming back to bed?"  
  
"They're beautiful, you know," Harry answered, unable to take his eyes off the tree and the hundreds of tiny lights flickering merrily on the branches. "The ornaments, that is. The ornaments on Hermione's tree are beautiful."  
  
The war had taken a terrible toll over the last year, including Hermione's parents and her husband Ron, as well as his elder brothers Charlie and Bill. Despite her grief, Hermione was adamant about maintaining her own home, the one she and Ron had begun. She was resisting pressure from Molly and Arthur that she move in with them. Hermione planned on having Christmas at her own house with her two-year old son. She had invited, no, insisted, that Harry stay as well. Harry knew his friend well enough to know that she needed his support there in order to help her resist the Weasley's offer.  
  
He could still remember her pleading invitation. "I have enough grief of my own," she had told him in confidence. "Molly and I will drown in each other's despair if I move in there, Harry. You've got to come and stay. You've got to help me get through the holidays this year. And of course I want Severus to stay, too." Harry had smiled at that. He remembered the looks on Hermione's and Ron's faces when he and Severus had announced their relationship to the two of them. That had been shortly before the ambush that had claimed Ron's life.  
  
And now, here they were together, the four of them, Harry, Severus, Hermione and her son Charles, sharing Christmas together.  
  
There was an odd inflection to Harry's voice as he continued; it was tense, strained. Whatever he was saying, it was costing him a lot to find the words he wanted. Severus detected it and padded softly in his bare feet across the floor to stand directly behind his lover. "Harry, are you all right?"  
  
"I never realized it before, but I never liked the lights. I never liked the lights on Christmas trees. It just occurred to me this evening."  
  
"What occurred to you?" Severus asked, somehow dreading the answer.  
  
"Occurred isn't the right word," Harry went on, still mesmerized by the lights, still flexing his left hand. "I just this evening remembered why I don't like the lights - why I hate the Christmas lights."  
  
"Why?" Severus whispered gently.  
  
"I can't remember Christmas with my parents, you know." Harry stood still as a statue, his only motion the ceaseless opening and closing of his left hand. "I would have only had one Christmas with them, when I was just a baby. The others would have been.with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon."  
  
Severus glanced down. Harry had stopped opening and closing his hand. He was now gingerly tracing his left palm with the fingers of his right hand, tracing the outlines of a shiny scar from long ago.  
  
"I didn't remember it before now. Not until I saw Charles playing around the tree when Hermione Spelled the lights on. I would have been about as old as he is now." Harry's voice trailed off.  
  
"What happened then?" Severus gently prodded.  
  
"We, Aunt Petunia, that is, had the old fashioned lights. Not the little small ones like Muggles use today, and not like wizard fairy-lights. No, she had the big, old fashioned kind of Christmas lights. The ones that get really hot, you know?"  
  
"Go on," Severus steeled himself, knowing that something from deep in Harry's past was making itself known tonight.  
  
"Dudley and I, we would have been about two. About the same age as Charles is now, you know? And we were playing around the Christmas tree and one of the ornaments got broken and."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I probably did it. It might have been me. It probably was me. But it might have been Dudley, mightn't it?" Harry never moved, never blinked, never took his eyes of the glittering lights of the tree.  
  
"It might." Severus hesitated himself. "Go on, Harry."  
  
'Aunt Petunia came in. She saw the broken ornament. She.she.she told me that I was bad, that I had done it and that I was very bad. She said I had to be punished for being very bad. She.she.she wrapped my hand around one of the bulbs.and it was hot, you know? It was very hot. It was burning hot and she wrapped her hand around mine and held it there and told me over and over that I was bad. And it burned my hand. And. and I tried to get away and I couldn't and she just held me there and held my hand, held it wrapped around that bulb and. and I couldn't get away and it burned. It burned so much."  
  
Harry stopped and turned to look at Severus, bewilderment on his face. "I reckon that's why I never much liked the Christmas lights."  
  
Severus searched Harry's face, trying to think of something to say. Then he stepped behind him and rested his hands gently on Harry's shoulders. He kissed the nape of his neck and quietly whispered "Nox." 


End file.
